Thursday, June 02, 2011

Fishkill, classes

Being a floating teacher and having no homeroom to attend to, I appointed myself as the enrollment officer for today. I waited all day for grade six enrollees but only a few enlisted. This means that the enrollees would flood in during the start of the classes. I don’t know why the parents have to do this since enrollment is free; no fees whatsoever are being collected. They just walk in with the report card and then enlist the name of their children and it’s done. Filipinos nga naman, parang ako.

Final preparations are being done. Last minute repairs, paint retouching, armchair repair, curtains check, I envy the teachers who have homerooms but preparing their homeroom means doling out personal money because this is not part of the department’s budget. The costs of paint and the labor could reach as high as 5,000 pesos.

I am quite happy that I was saved from the expense. Also a floating teacher does not have to worry about homeroom PTA, collections, consolidating the grades, etc—less administrative work. But the setback is that I have no homeroom to come home to, and my teaching load is higher than the advisory teachers. But its okay and, I think, only fair.

I was also appointed as the Flag ceremony coordinator. This means I have to report to work early.

Though I have no room to call my own, I was permitted to stay and maintain the CMPC room (Class Mate Personal Computer—notebook computers). Anyway, I’m excited, like a pupil, about the start of the classes.

I hope that fish pond holder learn their lessons. They are part to blame for the fishkill. The bureau of fisheries has warned them of the oxygen depriving effect of overpopulation and overfeeding but they did not listen. The number of fish killed is way beyond the capacity of the lake to support, which means they have violated the …hmmm…the standards set by the bureau.

Of course scientists explained that this is part of a naturally occurring phenomenon, but still a well managed fishpond would have lessened the impact of the fishkill. Now, like an aquarium, they are using compressors to aerate their fishponds.

The fishkill brought the worst in some of the fishermen. To salvage what they could, the fishpond operators sold their “double dead” bangus to the consumers. They mix it with the fresh fish.

The incident of fishkill is limited to two provinces but because of this operation by the unscrupulous fishermen, no one would eat bangus now.